Editor’s note:There is an extra special bonus guest post today in addition to my regular post. It’s by Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell biologist, and it’s about unregulated stem cell clinics. Be sure to check it out!

Last week, I wrote about a rather impressive measles outbreak at the “happiest place on earth,” a.k.a. Disneyland. At the time I wrote that post, the outbreak, which had reached several states, had spread to 17 people. As I sat down to write this, I wasn’t actually sure that this topic needed another post, but then I saw this:

As the number of measles cases continues to rise in Southern California following an outbreak at Disneyland last month, about two dozen unvaccinated students at one Orange County high school have been forced to stay home after a classmate contracted the disease.

In a message to students and parents at Huntington Beach High School on Thursday, Pamela Kahn, health and wellness coordinator at the Orange County Department of Education, said that students “who do not have any documented [measles, mumps and rubella] immunizations will be excluded from attending school until January 29.”

Also, the number of confirmed measles cases has climbed to 52, 46 of them in southern California. In Orange County itself, there were 16 cases as of Friday, ten of them linked to Disneyland, the rest not, a finding that’s led health officials to conclude that “measles has become more widespread throughout the county.” Not surprisingly, health officials in Californian are warning that the number is likely to go higher still. In fact, it’s already happening as “satellite” outbreaks are being reported as children infected at Disneyland come home and infect others.(more…)

Last week, the self-proclaimed “happiest place on earth” wasn’t so happy.

One of the disadvantages of posting once a week is that, unless I muscle in on someone else’s day I can’t respond rapidly to stories that appear early. Of course the flip side of that is that if a story appears over the weekend it’s all mine, and, besides, I have my not-so-super-secret other blog to respond to issues that occur earlier in the week. Another advantage is that, if I do decide to write about something from earlier in the week, I have the advantage of time to think.

You’ve probably figured out that what I’m referring to is the latest measles outbreak. Not surprisingly, it happened in the Los Angeles area. Surprisingly (or perhaps not so much), it happened at Disneyland. I say “not surprisingly” because it’s been well-publicized over the last few years that there are pockets of low vaccine uptake and high personal belief exemptions in California, complete with measles and pertussis outbreaks. This is thanks to pockets of affluent, entitled parents full of the Dunning-Kruger effect who think that they can learn as much about vaccines and autism via Google University as pediatricians and researchers who have devoted their entire professional careers to studying them. Of course, these parents are also facilitated by pediatricians who cater to their fears, the most famous of whom is Dr. Bob Sears, whose The Vaccine Book is a very popular, reasonable-sounding (to parents not aware of the antivaccine tropes within) bit of antivax lite, but there is also our old buddy Dr. Jay Gordon and a host of others.

Being a cancer surgeon and researcher, naturally I tend to write about cancer a lot more than other areas of medicine and science. It’s what I know best. Also, cancer is a very common area for unscientific practices to insinuate themselves, something that’s been true for a very long time. The ideas don’t change very rapidly, either. Drop a cancer quack from 2014 into 1979, and he would probably be right at home. Of course, part of the reason is because the “elder statesmen” of cancer quackery today were getting their starts in 1979. Still, the same ideas keep recurring even as far back as a century ago and even older, and if you broaden your criteria, these ideas exist on a continuum, either having descended directly from various ancient ideas such as vitalism, miasmas, or humoral theory or branched off somewhere along the way. Others branch off from the progress of science, taking a germ of a seemingly reasonable idea and turning it into quackery. It is the latter with which I plan on concerning myself today, the reason being that over the weekend I heard some truly awesome news. One of the most egregiously practicing non-physicians who claim to be able to cure cancer that I’ve ever encountered was arrested—yes, arrested!—and arraigned on criminal charges. I’m referring to “Dr. Alkaline” himself, he of the pH Miracle Living program and his Articles of Health blog, “Dr.” Robert O. Young. Behold:(more…)

Of all the preventative treatments ever developed through science- and evidence-based medicine, vaccines have arguably saved more lives, prevented more illness and disability, and in general alleviated more suffering than any single class of treatments or preventative measures throughout history. Given the obvious and incredible success of vaccines at decreasing the incidence of infectious diseases that used to ravage populations, it seems incredible that there would be such a thing as an antivaccine movement, but there is. Indeed, when I first encountered antivaccine zealots on the Usenet newsgroup misc.health.alternative about ten or twelve years ago, as a physician I really had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that such people existed. No doubt the same is true of many physicians, who take the scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy for vaccines for granted. However, I am a cancer surgeon, and I do not treat children; so until I discovered antivaccine rhetoric on the Internet I was blissfully ignorant that such views even existed. Other health care professionals knew better. Pediatricians, nurses, and any health care professionals who deal with children and the issue of vaccinations know better, because they face antivaccine views on a daily basis. It is because of the incredible importance of vaccination and the danger to public health the antivaccine movement represents that we at Science-Based Medicine write so frequently about vaccines and the antiscientific, pseudoscientific, and misinformation-packed fear mongering about vaccines that is so prevalent today.

The success of vaccination campaigns has recently been endangered by a number of factors, in particular the antivaccine movement. Because of various groups opposed to vaccination, either for philosophical reasons or because they incorrectly believe that vaccines cause autism, neurodevelopmental disorders, sudden infant death syndrome, and autoimmune diseases, among others, one of the most potent tools for encouraging high rates of vaccine uptake, school vaccine mandates, have come under attack. Alternatively, increasing numbers of parents have taken advantage of religious or philosophical exemptions in order to avoid the requirement to have their children vaccinated prior to entry to school. As a result, of late some states with lax vaccination requirements have begun to try to tighten up requirement for non-medical vaccine exemptions. The arguments used by the antivaccine movement against such legislation are highly revealing about their mindset, in particular their attitude towards issues of informed consent, which I will discuss a bit. But first, here’s a little background.(more…)